John Prados, French, versus Kevin, Russians This scenario begins two turns before the historical crossing of the Berezina. The French are in retreat. The victory conditions are for the French to still have over 20 SPs on the map and in communications at the end of December 4th (turn four of the scenario). Judging from our results so far, they have a chance, depending on their use of movement commands. The French chances would be better, opines John, if Russian march attrition were more costly. The easy thing would be to give the Russians fewer APs. But at least, the Russians had warm coats and a friendly populace. As it is the Russians have a two-column advantage on the Attrition Table. At the end of two and a half turns (before the Russian Forced March of Turn 3), Napoleon is just four hexes out of Molorechno, across the Berezina. The French have 28 SPs remaining, the Russians 27 SPs. The Russians lost a whole corps, Wittgenstein, (25,000 men) in an attack on Napoleon. The French have lost 5 SPs to attrition, the Russians about 3 SPs. Ney mounted an aggressive rearguard at Orsha against the main Russian column coming down the road from Smolensk. The Russians were over-confident and attacked. Ney got away without serious injury. All the French are now across the Berezina, except one French unit which is across the highway just to cut the Russian LOC. That could put some of the Russians out of LOC and increase their attrition (as John wanted). The Russian main force is now in Borisov. This is probably as well as the French could do in this scenario. The French have more than 20 points left (within LOC) which is a tactical victory for the French (if they can hold on). They got the army across the Berezina successfully. Next turn they probably have to move their supply source back. Our weather at the end was rain, so the French had to pay the extra movement point for the Berezina. Two of the three forces that crossed lost an SP to attrition in crossing. Even though Tschichagov moved up to block the main road at Borisov, the Russians were unable to harass the crossing. Tschichagov should have attacked. We played 2.5 turns. At the moment, the main French force has about 10 SPs. They have concentrated as well as they could. They did win a major victory against Wittgenstein. And they managed to redeploy Reynier, who is now the strongest corps the French have, and he can join Napoleon the next turn from Ashmjany. At this year's Origins Convention (in Ohio) we'll be playing the whole campaign from June 24, it will be set-up and going the whole time, probably near where the Gamers games are played. Back to OSG News April 2001 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Operational Studies Group. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com